Originally Posted by scienceguy106
See this is why science will never win. It’s why children in the US are getting measles because people still believe vaccines cause autism (see my first post in this thread). It’s why people still try to deny that global warming exist. We in the scientific community do everything we can do to not speak in absolutes, because it’s the only way to be honest.What I’m saying is that people can talk all day on here and say PE did or didn’t work for them. But in the end that’s not controlled, it’s not proof, and it’s definitely not scientific. But you’ll continue with the emotionally powerful argument of “The only science I need is the look on my wife’s face when I stick my new big dick in her.” or “The only science I need is that I hung 100 pounds from my dick and didn’t grow an inch.”
In reality, the only honest scientific thing we can say about PE is that “Some studies suggest improvement in EQ from pumping” and that “To date, there is no scientific study that supports a link between PE exercises and non-EQ related increases in penis size.”
But none of that shit gets people excited, so when I keep using the term “loud” I mean it. Look up Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield and see how they single-handedly have spread measles around the developed world because the scientific method wasn’t good enough for them.
I will be doing PE for years. I love it, and I think it is doing good things for me. But until I see a controlled study, I will never make the claim that it “works,” because for me to do so would be dishonest.
As I’ve said before, I love the sciences. And I’m sure you mean well, and have the best of intentions, and really want to contribute something to our scientific knowledge (oxymoron?) as a world. But to borrow and paraphrase an urban colloquialism:
” At this time in history, it’s all about the Benjamins baby.” Observe:
Pharmaceutical Industry
The global vaccine market is expected to register revenues in excess of US$ 34 Billion by 2012. (Businesswire, Dec 22, 2009)
“For the first time ever, in 2006, global spending on prescription drugs topped $643 billion, even as growth slowed somewhat in Europe and North America. The United States accounts for almost half of the global pharmaceutical market, with $289 billion in annual sales followed by the EU and Japan. Emerging markets such as China, Russia, South Korea and Mexico outpaced that market, growing a huge 81 percent.
US profit growth was maintained even whilst other top industries saw little or no growth. Despite this, “.the pharmaceutical industry is — and has been for years — the most profitable of all businesses in the U.S. In the annual Fortune 500 survey, the pharmaceutical industry topped the list of the most profitable industries, with a return of 17% on revenue.”
Publish or Perish
“Publish or perish” refers to the pressure to publish work constantly to further or sustain a career in academia. The competition for tenure-track faculty positions in academia puts increasing pressure on scholars to publish new work frequently. (Wikipedia- Publish or Perish)
Frequent publication is one of the few methods at a scholar’s disposal to improve his or her visibility, and the attention that successful publications bring to scholars and their sponsoring institutions helps ensure steady progress through the field and continued funding. Scholars who focus on non-publishing-related activities (such as instructing undergraduates), or who publish too infrequently, may find themselves out of contention for available tenure-track positions.
A scholarly writer may experience pressure to publish constantly, regardless of the academic field in which the writer conducts scholarship. One physicist, for example, sees evidence of shoddy scholarship in the field. In the 1990s, graduate students and untenured assistant professors in the humanities and social sciences may have experienced more pressure than academics in the natural sciences, but after 2000, the pressure spread into other disciplines and the phenomenon came to influence the advancement of tenured associate professors to the coveted full professor title in the United States. Because of declining enrollments in MBA programs, business school professors are also significantly under pressure in the mid-2000s.”
Now I don’t know your situation. But the doctors and engineers I know are under various pressures, both financial and peer, as described in the data I pulled, to generate funding, produce results, and publish to establish enough of a rep to eventually garner tenure, and get even more funding.
What I’m saying is that not everyone in these fields are in it for altruistic reasons.Or if they are, they end up having to bend to the status quo. And it’s been my experience that it doesn’t get more emotionally argumentative, vicious, petty, & biased than the Scientific intelligentsia.
It’s hyperbole on your part to state that McCarthy and Wakefield are responsible for a resurgence in measles.
Vaccines work off the principle of “like cures like”, which has been used in various healing arts for thousands of years.
Do vaccines work? Obviously yes. Can they cause adverse side effects, including death? Again yes. Are these effects statistically insignificant? As a whole of the population, yes. When it’s your child or wife?. Not so much.
I’ve known a number of people who’ve had adverse reactions to various vaccines. They obviously didn’t work for them. Anecdotal, I know, but an important observation for me in determining how I deal with vaccines. I don’t. They’re much safer ways to protect you’re health. Would I discourage people from using them? No, I’d show them both sides of the issue and let them come to an informed decision.
I’ll be the first to say that to believe that Wakefield’s autism study was the only evidence needed was flawed thinking on the part of many. Does it invalidate people’s suspicions? No. They’ve just got to do a better job of proving it. But like PE, I don’t see it happening. 34 Billion dollars in vaccine revenue by 2012 is “kill you dead money” if you get in the way of that kind of cash flow. Nowadays it’s just easier to destroy someone’s reputation. Ask Pons and Fleischmann.
Life is usually not about extremes. PE works for some, and for various reasons, not for others. But it does work. Just because JAMA, BMJ, or Lancet doesn’t confirm this fact, makes it no less real.